Located in the south-east of Adelaide on the Kaurna peoples land of Tandayangga (place of the Red Kangaroo Dreaming), Hurtle Square was one of the six squares designed by Colonel William Light in his 1837 plan of Adelaide.

South Australia’s earliest contact with Japan was in 1876, when the South Australian government began negotiations to settle Japanese sugar cane farmers in the Northern Territory. The scheme was never realised.

Based on the philosophy and understanding of child development of the German educator and philosopher Friedrich Froebel, kindergartens in South Australia began for both educational and humanitarian reasons.